


Sunshine Riptide

by sparrowkeet1



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24919843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowkeet1/pseuds/sparrowkeet1
Summary: Katara hasn't known what to make of Zuko since Ba Sing Se. He is cruel and kind, smug and shy, warrior and wounded. All she is is confused. Every time she and Sokka travel to the Fire Nation as diplomats, she gets to play Spin-the-Wheel to find out which Zuko will show up that day. Will it be Fire Lord Zuko, regal and fair; Bad Boy Zuko, arrogant and temperamental; Tortured Past Zuko, bleeding and cracked; Shy Awkward Zuko, unsure and reserved--who the hell knows? Not her. She just knows she is caught up in him, whoever he is, and has been since the catacombs.--Written for Zutara Week 2020, Prompt Day 3 - Fuse. Post-canon, pretending the last kiss never happened and no one can stop me.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 797





	1. The Incident

**Author's Note:**

> Sunshine Riptide from the Fall Out Boy album MANIA

_I'm stuck in the sunshine riptide  
Dancing all alone in the morning light_

Katara is now zero percent convinced by Zuko’s Bad Boy Act. Really, with the messy hair and the constant brooding, he’s laying it on thick, but she’s not fooled—hasn’t been in a long time. 

Maybe in the beginning, a lifetime ago, when he had first terrorized her village, she’d been scared. Maybe she had believed then that he was ruthless and cunning and evil. 

But there was no way for him to keep that up after that moment beneath Ba Sing Se. And maybe the Tortured Past thing is part of the act, but she has to give him a little credit for that, because his past does involve actual, you know, torture. 

Then all hope was lost for Bad to the Bone Zuko when he showed up at the temple and decided to use his powers for good instead of evil. In the course of his time as Aang’s firebending master, the truth was revealed: Zuko is a sweet guy, barely older than Sokka. He’s shy. He’s kind of a dork. 

If there was ever any doubt, now he’s been ruling the Fire Nation as a fair and just leader for years. Navigating the post-war world hasn’t been easy for any of them, but Fire Lord Zuko has shouldered the mantle as well as anyone—maybe better. When he sweeps into the room in his formal robes, his golden crown gleaming, he looks like the royalty he is. 

So when he loses his temper and tries to make it part of the whole Angsty Lone Rebel thing he thinks he still has going on, she doesn’t have a lot of patience for it. “Grow up!” she shouts at him across the table. “Honestly, you have such a short fuse—it’s like you’re still a kid!” 

“ _I_ have a short fuse?” he shouts back. “ _You_ are the one yelling at me over—over—” 

They look at each other for a minute, and she’ll be damned if she remembers what they’re fighting about, but her point stands. 

“Uh, it’s been a long day, guys,” Aang says placatingly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why don’t we wrap up for now?” 

“Fine,” Katara snaps. “I’m sure a good night’s rest will replenish everyone’s strength so they can antagonize me even more tomorrow.” She glares daggers at Zuko. 

“Hey, don’t drag the rest of us into this!” Sokka puts his hands on his hips. “We were all getting along fine before you guys started screaming about agricultural subsidies.” 

“I had no idea you felt so strongly about the issue,” Zuko’s agriculture minister murmurs sideways to his Fire Lord. 

Zukos groans. “We’re adjourned. Get out, all of you.” 

“Happy to.” Katara flounces out of the meeting hall and sweeps away to her chambers. Maybe she’ll get some peace and fucking quiet there. 

She does, for thirty seconds. Then Zuko bursts through the double doors, yelling, “I am not antagonizing you!” 

She whips around to face him. “What do you call this that you’re doing right now? In _my rooms_?” 

“It’s _my palace_ ,” he shoots back. He drags his hand over his face. “Look, I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with you.” At her murderous look, he hastily adds, “Or me, or whatever, that we’re always fighting. I’ve made peace with everyone else, with the world! And I thought I had made peace with you—you said you forgave me all those years ago—I can’t fix the past—” 

“I did forgive you for the past,” she says hotly. “I’m mad at you for right now.” 

“For what, exactly, right now?” he demands, and that is a good fucking question. 

Maybe for the twisted-up ache he puts in her chest, because she doesn’t know how or why it got there. It’s not there because she deeply admires his even-handed rule of the Fire Nation, and during the months between meetings she longs for his advice, because she doesn’t. It’s not because she finds shy dorky Zuko heartbreakingly endearing, because she doesn’t. And she’s not mad because she wants to gather the broken kid she’d met under Ba Sing Se—still there inside the man he is now, she’s sure—into her arms and bind up his wounds, because she doesn’t. 

She’s definitely not mad because Bad Boy Zuko, brooding aside, with his smoldering gaze and his tousled hair and the hard lines of his body, puts a twisted-up ache somewhere other than her chest. Because he doesn’t. 

Maybe it’s because he is the only one who has never pulled punches (or flames). Maybe it’s because when they used to spar (fight) it was a toss-up who would yield first. Now their fights are about trade negotiations and inter-governmental relations, but he is just as worthy an opponent. Never mind that they are on the same side, have been for years. Aang talks like it’s happy-fun-time all the time now just because the war’s over, but there are still disagreements, still hard things to wrestle through, still conflicting interests to balance. Katara is more than willing to slog through the ugly conversations to get to the best outcome for everyone, and for all Aang likes to cast himself as above that kind of unseemliness, Zuko will go toe-to-toe with her every time.

Maybe it’s because he’s seen her at her worst, wreathed in black, suffused with the power of the full moon and the anguish of her childhood, and he hadn’t shied away, not an inch. Maybe it’s because when he looks at her, he looks through her; he sees everything. Aang thinks she is a goddess, only capable of healing, but Zuko knows she is able to inflict pain. Able and sometimes willing, just like him. And if Aang puts her on a pedestal, at least she’s invincible up there. Down here on the ground with Zuko, she’s vulnerable. 

None of this will serve as a good answer for him right now, of course. And she can’t come up with anything else, because he’s stalked right up to her to yell in her face, and she can feel heat pouring off of him like a solar flare. 

“Answer me!” he snarls. 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snarls back. “Why are _you_ always mad at _me_?” 

If she had hoped to stump him as thoroughly as he had stumped her, she is in for something else. He launches immediately into what she surmises is a prepared tirade. “Because you’re insolent—” 

“I’m not your royal subject!”

“And you get under my skin—”

“Likewise.” 

“And you’re bossy—”

“If by _bossy_ you mean _passionate about protecting my people and the world—_ ” 

“And you never listen to me—” 

She stabs a finger into his chest. “ _You_ never listen to _me_!”

He snatches her hand away, his grip tight around her wrist. “Well, I’m listening now, Waterbender,” he hisses. “So go ahead. Tell me why you hate me so much.” 

Maybe it’s his closeness that’s scrambled her brain, or maybe it’s the iron hold he still has on her arm, burning her like a brand. Maybe it’s the culmination of years of confusion and frustration and missing him like a limb while she is in the South Pole. Whatever it is, she bites out the truth: “I don’t hate you. I hate the way you make me feel.” 

He stops short. Under his piercing look, she feels an angry blush spread over her face. He tracks the movement of blood under her skin, watches it crawl down her neck and stain her chest, and his eyes on the exposed flesh of her sternum don’t help. 

He flicks his gaze back up to her flaming face. “What way is that, Waterbender?” he asks, only he’s not shouting anymore.

“Stop calling me that,” she mumbles. 

“You didn’t answer my question.” He’s smirking now, and she wants to wipe that stupid smug look off his stupid smug face. 

“I don’t have to,” she retorts. 

His voice is a low rumble in his chest. “I’ll make you.” 

Before she can ask how exactly he intends to do that, he jerks her toward him and slams his mouth into hers. 

She wants to say that she stood stunned, or maybe that she recoiled in horror. Something noble, or at least indignant, or anything besides what she really does, which is let the furnace of his body boil her alive.

He lets go of her wrist to palm her hips, her waist, her ribs, and she fists her hands in his tunic, as if she could possibly drag him any closer. He is all teeth and tongue—she can’t tell if he’s kissing her or devouring her. She doesn’t care which as long as it doesn’t stop. 

But it does stop, because he has to gloat, because he’s Zuko. He pulls away just enough to give her a wicked smile. “Well, that’s an answer,” he rasps. 

“I changed my mind,” she tells him. “I do hate you.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” He looks pointedly down at where her hands are still clinging to his shirt. She yanks away as if she’s been burned.

She is saved from having to admit his point by the sound of someone banging on her door. “Katara?” Sokka’s voice rings out. 

“What?” she yells back, trying to quell the tremor in her voice. She staggers back from Zuko. 

Sokka swings the door open. “There you are! Aren’t you going to come to dinner with us? I’m starving!” He furrows his brow. “Zuko? What are you doing back here?”

Zuko crosses his arms and adopts his familiar scowl. “Nothing. Just fighting with your sister.” 

Sokka nods. “Oh, yeah. Typical.”

***

The next day of their meetings, and the next and the next, she pointedly ignores him. She looks down at her papers when he speaks, and she directs her comments to Aang or Sokka or Toph or Suki—anyone but the Fire Lord. If he notices—and how could he not; she’s been yelling at these meetings twice a year every year since the war ended—he doesn’t say anything, just goes about his work. 

For all her prim silence, he’s the only thing she can think about. The memory of his hands and his mouth are seared into her. But he is nonchalant, seemingly unaffected, and she hates him for it. She hates the half-stoked flame of desire thrumming in her chest and between her legs, and what she hates the most is this: his kiss hadn’t put it there. Her first real glimpse of him in the catacombs had. 

As soon as she had seen him, really seen him as a person instead of the enemy, she had been a goner. Then he had betrayed them, and that spark had frozen over, and she’d thought that such a tiny lick of flame could never survive the ice. 

Then he joined their cause, and the spark was an inferno, and it wasn’t love (lust?) anymore; it was rage. But he doggedly won her back over, and in regaining her trust, he quelled her anger. In its absence, she doesn’t know what to do with him—hasn’t known since Yon Rha. He’s definitively stopped being Zuko the Enemy, and he’s started being Fire Lord Zuko, who confounds and infuriates and enraptures her in equal measure. He is many Zukos, at once kind and hardworking, smug and arrogant, dangerous and powerful, broken and hurting. Bad Boy Zuko and Tortured Past Zuko and Awkward Sweet Zuko. She can never tell what’s real. 

In the quiet of her bed at night, she thinks maybe it’s all real. Maybe he’s as twisted-up as he makes her feel, still trying to figure himself out, so no wonder she’s having trouble doing it. She adds Conflicted Zuko to the top of the list, thinking maybe it encompasses all the others. And that doesn’t help either, because they are all trying to figure out which path is the right one. She can’t fault him for that, not when she has stumbled herself. 

Over a week passes since The Incident and even _she_ can’t dump water on the flame relit in her. One night she creates a new list, puts the first item at the top: Conflicted Katara.

***

“What’s gotten into you?” Sokka asks her at dinner on their last night in the Fire Nation. 

“Yeah, our talks aren’t the same without you and Zuko yelling all the time,” Suki puts in. 

“Nothing,” Katara mutters. “I’m just ready to leave.” 

Toph crosses her arms. “You want to admit it, or should I out you?” When Katara is silent, Toph shrugs. “Have it your way. Guys, she’s definitely lying. I don’t even think you really need to be the best Earthbender in the world to tell that.” 

Aang is frowning at her, and Momo takes the opportunity to snatch some fruit off his plate. “Toph’s right. Something’s going on.” 

Katara jumps up. “Maybe I don’t want to talk about it!” She storms out the room, not before she hears Toph say, “She was telling the truth on that part.” 

She locks herself in her rooms and flops onto the bed. She always hates this part, this ending where she says goodbye to Toph and Aang and Suki to sail back to the South Pole with Sokka. Toph and Suki go back to the Earth Kingdom, though Suki will visit as often as Aang goes back and forth in his travels. He goes wherever he’s needed, and that just leaves her Sokka and the tundra and life in a village that is admittedly her home but is hardly bustling with people to meet or things to do. 

And it leaves her without Zuko. Without the one person who seems to understand her, who never shies away from her passion or her strength or her pain. 

And now—now it’s going to be so much worse. She’s leaving without Zuko, but with the memory of him flush against her, and she doesn’t think that’s going to keep her warm so much as it’s going to burn her from the inside out. They’ll come back in six months like clockwork, but by then she’s afraid she might just be ashes. 

She is deciding between a hot bath and crying herself to sleep when a loud pounding sounds at her door. It’s Sokka or Aang come to console her (or grill her about her secrets), and she’s so not in the mood. “Go away,” she yells. 

A key turns in the lock, and the door bangs open. “No,” Zuko growls. 

She shoots to her feet. “Have you always been able to unlock our rooms? That is such an invasion of privacy, I—what are you doing?” 

He stalks across the room like a predator. “Finishing what I started.” He grabs her waist and hauls her into a searing kiss, and fuck, if he had seemed hungry before, now he is shaking with need. 

So is she. 

He forces her back until her shoulders hit the wall and the long line of his body is pressed hard into hers. She yanks the crown out of his topknot so she can wind her fingers in his long hair, and it clatters to the ground forgotten while he bruises her lips. 

He presses hot kisses along her jaw, behind her ear, down her neck; when he runs his teeth over her collarbone, she gasps and feels his mouth curl into that familiar smirk. 

“Still hate the way I make you feel?” he taunts, breath hot over her chest. He slides his hands up, cupping her breasts, grabbing her jaw to kiss her hot and hard again. 

“Still hate you,” she mumbles into his open mouth. 

He rocks his hips into her, and she pushes back into him, chasing the friction of him against her center. “Still doesn’t seem like it.” He touches every inch of her, strokes her hair and her face, grips her hips to grind himself against her until they are both panting, hums an appreciative noise when he grabs her ass, and then he slides one hand around to cup her sex, and her knees give out. He huffs a self-satisfied laugh and urges her toward the bed, tumbling after her to pin her with his weight. 

She hooks her legs around his narrow waist and arches into him, ablaze with want, and he groans her name into the curve of her shoulder. 

“Fuck,” she swears, and he laughs again. 

“Would you like to?” He mouths up her throat, but when he looks into her face, he seems to catch her uncertainty. “Kat, have you…before?” 

Shame barrels through her. She shakes her head. 

His touch gentles immediately. “We don’t…have to.” He smooths her hair away from her face. 

And this is her fucking problem. She has to add Sex God Zuko to her stupid list, but he’s not even that Zuko anymore, not as of five seconds ago. Now he is kind and reserved, sweet and shy. She thinks this is her favorite Zuko, but they all are, so she tells him the truth again: “I want to.” She shrinks beneath him. “But we don’t have to.” 

He flexes his hips, and her eyes flutter. “Don’t doubt that _I_ want to.” He brushes his lips over hers. “But I’m not…pushing you.” 

She pops the clasp on his robes in answer, and a feral smile flashes over his face. There’s Sex God Zuko back, and she knows she’s in for it. 

He rises to his knees to shed his robes and tunic, then drags off her leggings and rucks up her dress until she is stripped and exposed beneath him. Vulnerable, but that’s not new. 

She squirms under his raking gaze. He thumbs her hipbones. “Gorgeous,” he purrs, slinking down to kiss the inside of her thigh. She can feel the puff of his breath against that most intimate part of her, and then he puts his mouth there, and she is vulnerable to him in an entirely new way after all. 

His fingers play over her, and he eases one inside her. She strings together a few fragmented thoughts, like—this is nothing like when she touches herself alone in the dark, and doesn’t he think this is kind of gross? But he seems to be enjoying himself, humming happily against her, and she gives up on trying to think about it one way or the other. 

He slides in another finger, curling them expertly inside her, and nips at her thighs until she is breathing hard and writhing. 

“Come on, Kat,” he croons into her skin. “You’re doing so good. You feel so good, so hot and wet. Spirits, I can’t wait to fuck you.” 

Somehow he is reassuring and filthy at the same time, and it is so very Zuko. In no time he tips her over the edge, and it feels so good she can’t even be incensed at how incredibly smug he looks while she flutters around his fingers. 

He kisses up her stomach, flicks his tongue over her breasts, and she is right between euphoria and overstimulation. He nuzzles into her neck, and she sighs, leaning toward euphoria. 

While she is remembering how to breathe normally, he sheds the rest of his clothes, and the sight of his cock steals her breath right back away. 

She reaches for him (as if she knows what to do), but he shakes his head. “Not if you want me to make it to the main event,” he says ruefully. He hesitates. “Do you? Still? It’s ok if you…” 

She ignores his question; she considers the sprawl of her open legs invitation enough. “I want you to feel good,” she protests instead, curling a hand experimentally around him. “I want to learn how.” 

He hisses through his teeth. “Trust me, that’s not in jeopardy.” He catches her wrist gently and pulls her hand away. “I promise to let you figure that part out another time, ok?” 

She gets stuck on _another time_ , but she nods, and he positions himself between her legs. He flicks his eyes up to her face, and she nods again. 

He is so, so careful it makes her chest ache. The stretch still hurts, and by the time his hips bump hers she is squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, brushing his mouth lightly over hers. “Are you ok? You want me to stop?” 

For an instant, she hates this caring man braced above her, because he has made it impossible for her to hate him ever again. 

“I’m ok,” she tells him. The sting is already fading, and the fullness is foreign but not bad. 

“It gets better,” he promises her, “after the first time.” 

“I’m ok,” she repeats. “Really.” _After the first time_? 

He draws shallowly back and rocks forward, and the drag of him inside her feels delicious. “That part is already better," she tells him. 

His mouth quirks into a smile. He moves again, and soon she is chasing his withdrawals, hating the emptiness when he is gone is and loving the stretch when he slams back. 

“Fuck,” he grits out. “Fuck, Kat, I—” His hips stutter, and he gasps hard and collapses onto her. 

She loops her arms around him and strokes his back. After a few minutes, he rolls off her and pants at the ceiling. She winces when he pulls out, feeling a little sore and a lot abandoned, but he laces their fingers. “I was crushing you,” he explains. “I…I’ll get you in the shower, I just…fuck. I need a minute.” 

She laughs and rolls onto her side, head propped in her hand, so she can look at him. His hair is a mess, but he’s not brooding—he turns his face to hers and smiles. 

He makes good on his promise and bundles her into the shower, scrubbing sweat and come off her body and his. Then he herds her into the bed and starts redressing himself. 

She blinks at him, wants to ask, aren’t you staying? 

But he drops a kiss on her mouth and whispers, “Good night,” and the words freeze in her throat along with all her other questions.

***

In the morning, a servant brings her a steaming cup of bitter tea, and she knocks it back with a grimace. She can’t manage to rearrange her face for the rest of the morning, not when they bow their goodbyes to the Fire Nation court or when they step onto the ship or when Zuko, resplendent in his regalia, sees them off at the dock.


	2. The Famine

She fumes the whole voyage home, and then she fumes her way through her chores around the village. She fumes in meetings with Sokka and the Council, at meals, on fishing trips. She is mad enough to spit fire, but she feels cold down to her bones. 

Finally, Sokka stages an intervention. “What is going on with you?” He puts his hands on his head. “Everyone keeps asking me what the deal is, and I have to tell them I have no idea! What kind of Chief am I if I don’t know what’s happening with my own family?” He throws his arms out. “Why are you so mad?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says flatly. 

“Obviously,” he deadpans. “But I’m your brother, and I’m worried about you, so you’re not leaving this igloo until you tell me what’s going on.” 

She arches one eyebrow and a hunk of ice drops from the ceiling. 

“Don’t try to scare me with your magic water!” He puts his hand through the hole in the ceiling. “Could you…could you put that back, though?” He comes to sit beside her and puts his hand on her shoulder. “You can tell me, Katara. I think you’ll feel better if you stop keeping it bottled up.” 

She blows out a long breath. “If I don’t keep it bottled up, I think I might start crying and not stop.” 

He looks stricken but plows ahead. “If that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do.” 

She puts her arms around him. “You’re a good brother, Sokka.” 

“Thanks. You still have to tell me what’s going on.” 

Damn. “When we were in the Fire Nation, Zuko and I…we, um…you see, for long a time I’ve…and he came to my room the last night—”

Sokka makes a retching sound. “Nope, don’t need the details, no thanks, don’t want to know, don’t tell me or I’ll have to kill him.” 

She laughs a little at her big brother. “He left, though, and he didn’t say anything after that, and then we left, and I…” Her throat is tight. “I never know what he’s going to do, so I never really know how I feel about him. Sometimes he’s so infuriating, and sometimes he’s so kind. It seemed like it…meant something to him, but then…nothing.” She sobs into her hands, and Sokka pulls a face but puts his arm around her shoulders. 

“Guys are dumb,” he says conversationally, like she is not ugly-crying about her sex life to her brother. “Zuko’s a lot of things, but he’s not great with words. Who knows what he’s thinking? I never do.” 

She pauses and looks sideways at him. “You guys negotiate international trade treaties.” 

Sokka shrugs. “It always works out.” 

“Tui and La,” she mutters. 

“I wish Suki was here,” Sokka sighs. “She could tell you more about how guys are dumb.” 

This surprises her. “I thought you two were happy.” 

“We are! But I do dumb stuff all the time that upsets her, even though I don’t mean to. And she can be so dedicated to the Earth Kingdom that she forgets she has a personal life. And the distance is hard. We both mess up. But that always works out, too.” He points to a stack of scrolls. “We write a lot of letters. But…you can’t read them.” 

It’s her turn to say, “I don’t need the details.” 

“Have you written Zuko any letters?” Sokka waggles his eyebrows suggestively. 

She snorts. “Can you imagine him writing me back?” 

“No,” he admits. “He seems like a more in-person kind of guy.” 

She blinks away more tears. “That’s another thing. The distance.” 

Sokka rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Well, he isn’t much for letters with me, either. And even though we get up there twice a year, there’s always more to discuss in the other months—mostly new problems—no shortage of those. It could be quite useful to have a Water Tribe representative in the palace more often.” 

“Sokka, you don’t have to dream up diplomatic mumbo jumbo for me. I’ll be ok.” 

“You’ve been moping around the village for weeks,” he points out. “Besides, I think it really would be helpful. And I know you’re bored here under the best of circumstances.” He bumps his shoulder into hers. “Come on, Katara. If Suki can make a go of it with an idiot like me, surely you can make a go of it with an idiot like Zuko.” 

“I can’t believe I’m taking romance advice from my brother,” she moans. 

“Hey! Which one of us is in a successful relationship?” 

She glares. 

“That’s right. It’s me.” He jumps up. “So it’s settled. I’ll put you on a ship tomorrow!” 

***

No one can say Sokka doesn’t go all in on a plan. She is on her way first thing the next morning, and he promises to send a messenger hawk ahead of her announcing her arrival. 

Stuck on the ship with nothing to do but think about what lies ahead, she starts to doubt the plan. She can’t just show up at the palace, even if Sokka has come up with some excuse for her presence. Zuko will set right through it, right through her—he always does. He’ll see how much their separation hurts her, how helpless she is to the forest fire of her feelings for him. He’ll think she is needy and weak, and he’ll laugh in her face. 

She almost turns the ship around, nearly gives the order about a hundred times a day. Only the tiniest flicker of hope stays her hand each time. 

Maybe he longs for her, too. Maybe it had meant something to him. 

The days tick by, hope and fear wrestling inside her, and by the time the Fire Nation is visible in the distance, she is sick over the railing. 

He’s not at the dock. 

Her heart sinks. Let’s go, she almost says to the crew. Our plan here failed. 

But the Foreign Minister is waiting for her in Zuko’s place, and she can’t very well tuck tail in front of him, not after Sokka has given her the cover of some important matter to attend to. He escorts her into the palace, and servants bustle her things into her usual chambers. “The Fire Lord will see you shortly,” he tells her, bowing politely. “As always, the Fire Nation welcomes you.” 

She bows back. “Thank you.” Some welcome, she thinks—he couldn’t come out to do it himself? Hardly the actions of a man pining for her. 

This was a mistake. She’s surer of it every minute she waits outside the throne room. He’d gotten laid, and that was it; now it’s back to playing Spin-the-Wheel and getting a different Zuko every day. She wonders grimly which one is on the other side of the massive doors. 

Finally, the guards admit her, and she crosses the ornate hall to find him slumped on the throne, hand over his eyes. “Zuko?” This isn’t one she has on her list—he looks exhausted and drawn, somehow older than when she left. 

His head jerks up. “Katara?” He scrubs his hands over his face. “Shit.” He seems to find that inadequate to convey his frustration, because he says after a beat, “Fuck!” 

She crosses her arms. This is going even worse than expected. “Great to see you too,” she snarls. “I had a pleasant journey, thanks for asking. I was so honored you took the time to escort me from my ship.” 

“No, I—” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I thought you were coming tomorrow. I must have gotten the days mixed up.” 

“Oh, good,” she snaps. “Obviously my arrival was important to you. Fantastic.” 

“It’s not that,” he snaps back. “I’m kind of managing a crisis, and I didn’t expect to have to deal with another one.” 

“Well, excuse me for burdening you!” She doesn’t have to stand here and be insulted (and try not to cry in front of him). She whips out of the throne room, ignoring him calling after her. 

She locks herself in her room and kicks a vase into the wall. It shatters, and she bursts into tears. 

This is the same stupid room, the same stupid bed. Every time she looks around, she hears his low voice praising her, his ragged gasps of pleasure. And then she hears him cursing the very sight of her. Spirits, she had been braced for disappointment, but this—this is worse than anything she’d feared. He hadn’t looked right through her so much as he hadn’t bothered to look at her at all. 

She is a little surprised, then, when someone knocks on her door. “Go away!” she sobs. If this is the same conversation she’d had the last time she was in this room—

“No.” It’s his voice, tired this time, but it is the same conversation, and that’s an extra twist of pain. There is the sound of a key scrabbling on metal, and then him cursing, and she allows herself a little smile—she’d frozen the lock this time. 

She hears a thud that sounds a lot like his head hitting the door. “Kat, please let me in.” 

“Don’t call me that,” she retorts. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. 

She smells hot metal, and he’s already stalking into the room when she realizes she probably should have anticipated that he could melt the ice—and the lock. 

He kicks the door shut and rounds on her. “Why are you being so difficult?” he growls. “You don’t understand—”

“Did you come here just to insult me? You didn’t get in enough of that in already?” She glowers at him, but it’s hard to keep up the glare when she gets a good look at his face. His hair is a mess, and not in the Bad Boy way—more like he’s been running his hands through it all day. His good eye has a shadow like a bruise under it, and he looks worn down, as if he hasn’t slept for days. Her vitriol evaporates on her tongue. “Zuko? What’s wrong?” 

He staggers to the bed, yanks off his formal cloak, and sinks down. The crown slips from his unraveling top knot and clatters to the ground; it reminds her of snatching it out the last time she was with him, but the similarities begin and end there. “There was a bad fire further inland,” he says hoarsely. “It happened where we grow almost all our wheat. It’s…all gone. A huge portion of our food supply, up in smoke.” 

Her blood runs cold. She knows what it is like to be hungry, and she wouldn’t have wished it on Fire Nation villagers even when they were at war. If they had fought for anything these last few years, it was that every person in the world had enough to eat. This—famine—is their nightmare. “Why didn’t you send word? I could have brought food from the South Pole!” 

He shakes his head. “It just happened four…no, five days ago. A lot of farmers were injured in the fire, and almost all their houses were destroyed. I’ve had my hands full just trying to get them shelter and medical care. I haven’t had a chance to send messenger hawks to anyone.” 

“How far away are the hurt?” she demands. She can’t get them food this instant, but she can start healing right away. 

“It’s three days’ journey to the most remote villages affected. But we’ve evacuated everybody—that’s what I was finishing when you got here. Everyone’s been working around the clock, and no one notified me you’d arrived. I owe my Foreign Minister a medal for greeting you; otherwise you’d have stepped off the ship to no one.” 

Ok, so maybe her rage at her less-than-ceremonial welcome was unmerited. She decides to deal with that prickle of shame later. “Where are the evacuees now?” 

“Here in the Capital. Our hospital is the only place big enough to house them all, but they’re struggling, too. We aren’t set up for a disaster on this scale.” 

She stands up and grabs her water skein. “Which way to the hospital?” 

He hauls himself to his feet and retrieves his crown from the floor. “I’ll take you.” 

She takes the crown from him and points at the bed. “No, you’ll get some sleep. You look terrible.” 

He winces. “I need to visit the hospital anyway. I want the workers and the villagers to know they have the throne behind them.” 

“No offense, but you don’t look very inspiring right now.” She pushes him back down. “Seriously, just point me in the right direction.” 

He points, and she heads out the door. He’s asleep before it swings shut. 

The hospital staff practically cry with relief when they see her, and she sends them home immediately. “You’ve taken good care of these people,” she tells them. “Now go take care of yourselves.” She is a little surprised they listen—she’s hardly their boss; she’s not even their nationality—but they go with minimal protest. She spends hours healing horrific burns and setting broken bones. When everyone is stable, she goes back around and fixes the minor cuts and sprains. She is doling out cups of tea when Zuko arrives, looking better but still wan. “You’re supposed to be asleep.” 

“I was,” he tells her. “For ten hours. I think it’s your turn.” He eases the teapot out of her hands. “Go on. The staff will be back soon.” 

“I can wait for them,” she protests. She hadn’t felt tired, but now that she stops to think about it, her arms and legs are like stone. Zuko herds her gently toward the door, so she goes, and when she gets back to her room she pens quick letters to Sokka, Toph, and Aang asking for aid. After she puts the scrolls in a servant’s hand and extracts a promise that he will send them right away, she collapses onto the bed in her clothes. 

The blankets smell like him. She sleeps happily for the first time in weeks.

***

When she wakes up, sunlight is streaming into the room, and her mouth tastes like dirt. She’s not sure which day it is or how long she’s been asleep, but she’s sure that after the voyage and the hospital, her clothes are overdue for a wash. So is she. She heads for the shower, cranking the water hotter until steam floods the room, and steps in.

It’s impossible not to remember standing in the same golden tub under the spray with Zuko. He’d lathered her from head to toe and rinsed her worshipfully, as if he hadn’t just had his way with her already. Thinking about it makes heat coil low in belly; it also makes her want to puke. 

She’s right back where she started. It’s impossible to tell from his reaction when she arrived what he thinks about her. The crisis supersedes everything else; she feels it as much as he does. The haggard hospital staff and suffering patients tug on her heart even now, and she resolves that even if Zuko throws her out of the palace for being an over-emotional jilted lover, she will make her rounds one more time before she leaves. 

She feels shame flood her. She _had_ been an over-emotional jilted lover. She had burst into his throne room yelling while he had been struggling to guide his people through a disaster. Though she’s never seen him look so awful before, that was Fire Lord Zuko without a doubt, dedicated to his country and willing to do anything to serve his nation. She owes him an apology and as much of her help as he will accept. 

She lets the water pound her face so she can’t feel the tears sliding down her cheeks. Every Zuko is her favorite Zuko, and Fire Lord Zuko is no different. She’d never admit it to anyone, but she is awed every time she sees him on the throne, regal and otherworldly. It’s impossible not to respect his leadership; he has made so much progress in building a Fire Nation that isn’t consumed by war. They never would have won without him—she sees now that when he challenged Azula for the crown, he was drawing on the beginnings of Fire Lord Zuko even then—and they would never have made it this far into a world of peace without his steady hand. 

She admires him. She misses him. She aches for his people, for the long road she knows is ahead to combat starvation. She aches in a different way altogether for the heat of his hands on her. 

She hates him for breaking away from her without a backward glance. She breathes easier at the sight of him; when he looks at her, she can’t breathe at all. 

She’s not sure where in Sokka’s Plan she is supposed to be sobbing in the shower. She’s pretty sure she’s just screwed. 

She hears the door to her chambers ease open, and she hopes it’s someone from the kitchens with breakfast, or whatever mealtime it is now. 

“Well, hello.” 

She yelps. That self-assured voice does _not_ belong to a servant. 

He is propped in the bathroom doorway, arms crossed, looking very satisfied with himself, looking very satisfied with _her._

“What are you doing in here?” she asks furiously. She slams the water off and snatches up a towel, flushed with rage and with the weight of his molten gaze on her. Vulnerable, as always. 

“Please,” he drawls. “Don’t cover up on my account.” 

It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but she yanks the towel around herself all the same. “You have _got_ to stop letting yourself in here—”

“The door wasn’t locked—”

“You broke the lock!”

He shrugs. “You froze it.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be managing a crisis or something?” She shuffles her bare feet awkwardly, acutely aware that he is striking in his royal garb and she is looking, she’s sure, like a drowned snow-rat. She whips the water off herself and drains it into the tub, not that she’s not tempted to throw it in his face. 

“A pretty little waterbender fixed my medical care problem.” His sharp teeth glitter in his leering grin. “So I have a bit of free time.” He pushes off the doorframe and steps closer to her. “Besides, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer you a warm welcome.” 

So today it is Suave Sex Zuko, her newest favorite. For all the wetness that pools between her legs, she can’t do this again. “Save it,” she snaps, stepping away from him. “I’m already used to the cold goodbyes.” She won’t be conned this time, won’t be lit by his hands and his mouth and then extinguished alone in the South Pole ice. Had she resolved to apologize to him just a few moments ago? She resolves to kick his ass instead. 

The smug expression drops off his face. “What?”

“I’ll help you with your crisis,” she tells him, “but I’m not helping you get off.” 

“What are you talking about?” Like people walk in on other people showering for any other purpose. 

“I’m not here for you to get laid.” She can’t remember her stated ruse of a purpose for being here (had Sokka even told her?) but he doesn’t have to know that. “So get out.” 

He flinches. “Kat, I really have no idea—”

“Stop calling me that!” The pet name makes her melt, into arousal or tears; she’s not sure which. She’s sure she hates either feeling (both?) right now.

“You didn’t seem to mind last time—” 

“Well, I mind now!” 

He pauses, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. “Let’s do this again—”

“Let’s not,” she growls. 

He grinds his teeth. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, I’m listening. You’re mad, and I don’t know why, and I need you to tell me so I can fix it.” 

Without his wicked smirk, his face reveals the same shadows she’d seen when she arrived. She feels the tiniest bit bad. Okay, a lot bad. Fuck, she has got to stop yelling at him. “Can we have this conversation not in the bathroom?” She stares at him until he groans and turns to face the wall. When she’s satisfied he’s not peeking, she wraps a robe around herself and pads into the bedroom, sinks onto the bed with her chin on her knees. He follows her and looks expectant, eyebrow raised. She sighs. “I don’t want to do…this. Just jump into bed with you when I’m here, and otherwise…nothing.” 

She doesn’t know why she is telling him this most humiliating truth, why she is admitting, if not in so many words, to wanting a relationship with him. Telling the truth is how she got into this mess, and so far it’s gotten her one exquisite night with him and whole lot of heartache. 

Levelly—and she hates how calm he is, knows how to deal with short-fuse Zuko but not this steady man, not outside diplomacy—he tells her, “You indicated that was exactly what you wanted.” 

Her voice trembles. “That’s what _you_ indicated.” She looks away, afraid she’ll cry; she is so fucking sick of crying about this. 

“Katara,” he starts slowly, and she misses _Kat_ even though she told him to stop using it, “all I know is you didn’t ask me to stay the night, and you didn’t say anything the next morning. You didn’t even look at me, and then you left.” 

She whips her head around to stare at him. “You didn’t even _try_ to stay the night, and _you_ didn’t say anything, either! You just let me leave like nothing was different!” Her voice cracks, and then she is crying, and she makes a wordless noise of frustration. 

He strokes a hand down her back, his expression as soft as his touch. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.” 

She sobs. “Don’t call me—”

He hushes her. “Tell me what you do want. Obviously I’m not…very good at figuring it out.” 

A choked little laugh bubbles out of her. “Sokka did say you weren’t a very good communicator.” 

He snorts. “Are we taking advice from Sokka now?” 

“He pointed out that he’s the one in a loving relationship.” 

Zuko’s soothing circles over her back stop. “Is that…what you want?”

And this is the most vulnerable she feels yet, not just her body laid bare for him but everything she is. She’s told him too much truth to start lying now, and even if she does, he’ll know. She puts her head on her knees so she doesn’t have to see him seeing her. “I want to stop leaving here like it doesn’t matter. Like I don’t miss you when we sail away. I want to stop going back to the South Pole alone.” 

A corner of his mouth curls up. “Well, then it’s a good thing Sokka asked me to make you a permanent envoy to the Fire Nation.” 

She jerks her head up. “What?”

“He sent a letter ahead of you.” 

She puts all her cards on the table. “I know, but he wasn’t supposed to come out and say that was the plan! He was just supposed to tell you his excuse for sending me back here. I don’t even know what it was.” 

His smirk returns. “He said that’s what he told you.” 

She goggles at him. “He told you my mission was an excuse?” 

“He told me he told you he would send a letter with an excuse,” Zuko corrects her. “What he really sent was the whole plan. He didn’t even make up a mission. He told me you were kicking around the South Pole like someone spit in your sea prunes, and that someone was me.” 

“You knew?! You knew this whole time that I—he told you—you acted like—you made me say—” 

He laughs at her spluttering. “He just said you wanted to spend more time here. He hinted, but he wasn’t specific about why.” 

“Why did you think?!”

Zuko shrugs. “It’s warmer up here?”

“Tui and La,” she sighs. She wants to kill her brother, and kiss him. Same with Zuko, only a very different kiss. 

His hand slides across her back until his fingers curl around her ribs. He nuzzles into her hair. “I’m sorry I made you think it didn’t matter to me when you left.” He drops a feather-light kiss on her temple. “It kills me when you sail away. Always has.” 

She angles her face toward him, and he lays the same faint kiss on her lips. “And I’m sorry I seemed angry when you got here. Obviously things weren’t going well, and I always want you to see me at my best.” He brings up his hand to stroke her tangled curls. 

“Don’t be sorry for that part,” she whispers. “You were at your best. You were taking care of your people. You always do.” 

“The other parts, then,” he amends. “Let me make it up to you.” 

She looks into the liquid gold of his eyes. “How are you going to do that?” 

The hand in her hair tightens. He kisses her like he had the first time, sharp and rough, hungry. He drags the robe off her shoulders and lays her out on the bed, settling into the cradle of his hips and lowering his mouth to her breasts. That short-circuits her brain for several minutes, but eventually she remembers the last time and shoves her hand into his leggings. When she grasps the swollen length of him, he groans. “I’m supposed to be making something up to you, not the other way around.” 

“You promised,” she reminds him. She urges him over onto his back, and he helps her get his clothes off. She straddles his thighs and trails her fingers over his cock. “I want to know how.” 

His eyes are shut tight. “You’re doing a pretty good job already,” he says in a strangled voice. But he curls his fingers around hers and shows her how to stroke him; she figures she’s hit her stride when he lets go to fist his hands in the sheets. 

She can’t take her eyes off him. Even with scars crisscrossing his alabaster skin, she thinks he is beautiful, maybe because of them—he got some of those scars protecting her. She watches his muscles flex and tighten when he thrusts up into her hand, and if that isn’t her teenage fantasy come true… 

He slits open his eyes to watch her watching him. “See something you like?” he rasps. Honestly, she wonders, how can he sound so smug in between the harsh gasps she is wringing out of him? She thumbs the head of his cock in retaliation, and he hisses. “Oh, that’s it.” He drags her down to kiss her and snakes a hand between them. 

She mewls when he brushes his fingers between her legs; he smirks against her lips. Two fingers slide easily into her, and she tries to clamp her mouth shut, but he’s not having it. “You make the hottest little sounds for me,” he cajoles. “I love to hear you.” He crooks his fingers, strokes her clit, and she lets out the gasping moans she’d been trying to smother. “That’s it. So good, you’re so good for me, Kat.” He works her over expertly, whispering praise and promises in her ear, and it feels blindingly good. 

She grinds down into his hand, chasing friction, chasing him. He bites into the flesh of her shoulder, and her vision whites out for a second. He laps over the bruise and eases his fingers out of her. She pushes herself up on shaky arms, still fluttering and oversensitive, hating the empty feeling. 

He is looking up at her through the fan of his lashes. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” he tells her. Warmth floods her down to her fingertips, and the blaze he’s set inside her feels less like a forest fire and more like a sunrise, chasing away the dark and the cold. 

He settles his hands on her hips, and she remembers the jut of his erection between them and finds herself out of her depth. “What do I—” Her voice is small and embarrassed. She starts again. “Do you want to—” 

She shoots him a helpless look, but he is unconcerned. “I can roll you over and have my way with you,” he suggests, “or you can stay up there and have your way with me.” 

“Up here?” she asks. Having her way with him sounds excellent, but so does him having his way with her, and the logistics of her _up here_ seem confusing at best. 

He gives her that wicked grin, and all her joints turn to liquid. He urges her hips up with one hand and positions himself with the other. She remembers him saying it feels better the next time and lowers herself down on trembling legs. 

He’s right. There’s barely a twinge of pain, and if the feeling of him so intimately meshed with her is still a little foreign, at least it assuages the twitching emptiness she’d felt at the withdrawal of his fingers. 

“That’s it,” he breathes. “Good girl.” His hands on her waist help her rise up and sink back down, and it does feel good, the control and the view of him stretched out under her. 

When she gets the rhythm figured out, he lets his hands wander, tweaking her nipples and petting her shaking sides, and that feels good, too. 

She rolls her hips and is rewarded with his tightening grip. “I take it back,” he says raggedly. “ _This_ is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She leans down to kiss him, and he fists his hands in her hair, doesn’t let her back up. “Fuck,” he swears into her mouth, slamming his hips into hers, and she can feel the spasm of his whole body beneath her. 

He takes a few heaving breaths while she peppers his face with kisses. “Fuck,” he says again, faintly this time. His hands trace up and down her back. “How is it that no one has ever done this to you before? It’s a fucking crime.” 

She pushes her face into his neck. She knows, she knows—she’s too old to have been a virgin until a month ago. “I’m not overly popular with men,” she muffles. If you don’t count a furtive makeout with Jet—she doesn’t—and an ill-advised kiss from Aang, she’s had no popularity at all. “I don’t know that anybody wanted to do this to me before.”

He actually scoffs at her. “I have told more than one of my noblemen that you’re unavailable.” 

She picks her head up to glare at him. “Why on Earth would you do that?” 

“So I could have you to myself,” he says. “Obviously.” 

She flops back down. “Ok, let’s ignore how inappropriate _that_ is—” 

“No way was I letting my own courtesans get in the way of what I’ve been working towards since I was sixteen—” 

“Well, what if I liked one of them?” 

“You don’t even know them!” 

“That’s where I was going before you interrupted me,” she says hotly. “It doesn’t count if men who barely know me are trying to get into bed with me.” 

“I think men who do know you are a little scared of the whole Master Waterbender thing.” 

She considers this. “But you’re not.” 

He laughs. “Scared of you? Of course I am.”

“Thanks,” she groans. 

He loops his arms tight around her waist. “Call it a healthy respect. I know what you’re capable of. It’s a good thing, Kat. Your strength is part of you.” 

“If only,” she says drily, “you were too scared to yell at me in meetings.” 

“You wouldn’t like it if I didn’t,” he counters. 

“No,” she admits. “I wouldn’t. That’s what I miss in the South Pole—someone to challenge me.” 

“So don’t go back,” he says simply. “Stay here. I promise to challenge you anytime you like, as long as by _challenge you_ you mean fu—” 

“Zuko!” 

He grins and pulls them both up. “Alright, alright. I promise to challenge you _and_ fuck you anytime you like.” 

“That’s not better,” she protests as he turns on the shower. 

“Sure it is.” He begins the same worshipful process of soaping up every inch of her, and she basks in it. “You like both.” 

When they are clean and dry, he steps back into his pants and pins her with a look. “Ok, listen,” he says. “This is me, communicating, so write Sokka an announcement or something. I’m not staying the night right now because it’s 2 in the afternoon.” She stifles a laugh. “I’m going to the hospital to see how everyone is.” 

She perks up. “Can I come?”

He offers her his hand, and she threads her fingers through his. “After the hospital, I have all these meetings. Then, I think you should have dinner with me.” 

With a mock little bow, she tells him, “I accept on behalf of the Southern Water Tribe.” 

Rolling his eyes, he tugs her into the hallway, and they set out for the hospital. “After dinner,” he murmurs when no one else is around, “there are a few more things I could teach you.” 

She feels the familiar thrum of arousal. “And then you’ll stay the night with me?” 

He squeezes her hand. “No,” he says. “You’ll stay the night with me.” 

“Why is that?”

His wicked smile nearly knocks her knees out from under her. “My bed is bigger.”


	3. The Aid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned this to have 3 chapters total. Whoops.

He does end up taking her to bed, but not quite as originally planned. 

When they visit the hospital, they are both encouraged to see the patients doing well. The staff bow to him and fall on Katara with effusive thanks. Zuko watches them praise her with a little smile, and she feels bathed in sunlight.

While she is checking over her patients, fussing with their blankets and murmuring reassuring words, she glimpses an aide dash into the hospital and slide into a bow in front of Zuko. As she turns to see what’s going on, Zuko motions impatiently for the young man to get up, and they have a conversation too quiet for her to hear. It can’t be anything good, though, because Zuko’s face grows angry, fingers flexing and curling into fists. 

Zuko sweeps out of the hospital, so she pats her last patient’s hand and then hurries after him. “Where are you going?” 

“To yell at my Council,” he says through his teeth. 

“Any particular reason?” 

“They’ve called an emergency session.” 

“Can they do that?”

“No. It’s an insult.” 

“Then why are you going?”

“Because it’ll look even worse if I’m not there to put them back in line.” 

He is some combination of Fire Lord and Bad Boy, terrifyingly authoritative with his temper boiling a millimeter beneath the surface, and it sends a frisson of heat through her. Get a grip, Katara, she tells herself. This is not the time. 

He slams open the doors to the meeting room, and she slips in behind him to stand in the back. It’s the same room they use to hold their semi-annual meetings, but the atmosphere is much different, all Zuko’s advisers scowling and murmuring amongst themselves. A few give cursory dips of their heads when their Fire Lord enters, but the rest don’t even bother. 

“What is it,” Zuko cuts in, voice cold and sharp as steel, “that you want?” 

The men clear their throats and glance around the table at each other. When no one speaks up, Zuko snaps a wave of flame down the table, and the advisers’ papers all go up in smoke. 

“Tell me why I shouldn’t fire every last one of you for insubordination,” he snarls. “You have ten seconds.” 

“My Lord,” says one of them in a shaky voice, “we are…concerned…about the ramifications of this fire with regard to the nation’s food supply.” 

“No shit,” Zuko growls. 

The man pales. “Right, My Lord, of course. We, uh, we are disturbed that there appears to be no plan to avoid famine. We are…allegedly…in a new era of international cooperation, yet no other nation has come to our aid.” 

Zuko deflates marginally, and when he speaks, some of the fight is gone from his voice. “It’s been a week. We aren’t out of food yet. There’s still time to receive shipments from other countries.” 

Another man pipes up, “How long is that going to take? Word hasn’t even been sent that we are in need of aid!” 

Zuko glances around the room, and Katara wills him to look at her. When he finally does, she makes a writing motion and sees his eyes widen in understanding. 

He straightens back up and tells them, “Word has been sent.” 

The man closes his mouth with an audible snap. 

“Any other criticism of your Fire Lord?” Zuko asks threateningly. 

Silence. 

“Then get out of my sight.” 

The advisors scatter, and Katara smothers a laugh. It’s not funny, she tells herself, that they look like nothing so much as Komodo chickens fleeing an angry armadillo bear. 

Zuko passes a hand over his tired face. “Please tell me,” he says without looking at her, “that you actually sent word.” 

“Of course I did!” She puts her hands on her hips. “I’m not an idiot.” 

“Great. You want a job as a Fire Nation Minister?” 

“Which one?” 

“Any of them.”

She does laugh then, sweeps into a mocking bow. “At your service, My Lord,” she giggles.

Zuko’s eyes flash gold. “Don’t get yourself into trouble.” 

She is saved from taking off her clothes then and there by the ground shaking underneath them. 

“What the hell—” 

She shrieks, “Appa!” and bolts through the palace halls to slide into the courtyard, where Aang is offloading crates from Appa’s saddle. “Aang! You came!”

His face splits into a grin. “This is my whole job, Katara.” 

She throws her arms around him, and he hugs her back. “Thank you,” she whispers. 

Zuko comes panting into the courtyard a moment later. “Getting too old for this shit,” he mutters to himself, winded. Straightening, he smiles at Aang and then bows low. “Avatar Aang.” 

Aang leaps across the dirt and alights in front of Zuko. “Fire Lord Zuko,” he says stiffly, then yanks his friend into a hug. Momo scampers along Aang’s arm to perch on Zuko’s head. “This is just what Appa could carry,” he explains, pulling back to gesture at the dozen or so crates. “The Earth Kingdom is sending a fleet of ships. It should be here in a few days.” 

Zuko looks so relieved Katara thinks he might cry. “I owe you and the Earth Kingdom a great debt.” 

Aang claps a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “No,” he says simply, “you don’t. This is what friends do for each other, Zuko. This is the world at peace.” 

Zuko, Aang, and Katara spend the rest of the day unpacking the crates and distributing the food. Katara takes bread and vegetables to the hospital while Zuko and Aang supply the rest of the evacuees in the army barracks that is serving as a makeshift refugee camp. She catches sight of a few of Zuko’s ministers standing gob-smacked in the hallway, and she smirks at them openly. 

Zuko invites Aang to stay for dinner, and the three of them eat together in the courtyard so they can take turns tossing fruit to Appa and Momo. Katara thinks about skulking alone around the South Pole, and her heart swells with joy to be with these two men instead, her dear friend and her—lover? Boyfriend? 

She decides to worry about that part later.

As they are finishing their dinner, Zuko looks thoughtfully at the spread on the low table in front of them. He motions to a servant, who approaches the table and bends down so Zuko can give her quiet instructions. 

She straightens up and looks surprised. “Are you sure, My Lord?” 

Zuko nods, and the girl smiles as she darts away. 

“What was that about?” Aang asks. 

“Nothing,” Zuko shrugs. 

Katara and Aang exchange a disbelieving look. Before either one of them can press him, they see a line of palace staff and soldiers march into the kitchens and then back out with loads of food. 

“Is that from the palace food stores?” Aang goggles at him. 

Shy Zuko makes an appearance as he ducks his head. “I was told bread prices were already rising in the city,” he mutters. “We still have citizens who are barely getting by, and I was worried…” He trails off, turning pink. 

Aang claps his hands. “Zuko, that’s incredible!” 

“It’s my job,” Zuko mumbles, an echo of what Aang had said to Katara earlier. 

They are interrupted by the shuffle of Appa folding all six legs under himself. He groans at them and closes his great eyes, settling his head down. 

“Good night, Appa!” Aang trills. “I guess that’s my cue. We need to get going early tomorrow—I want to check on the Earth Kingdom fleet’s progress, make sure they don’t hit any snags.” He jumps up and collects Momo. “Katara, you want to walk to the guest wing with me?” 

“Oh, uh, sure,” she stammers. Of course he thinks she’s staying in her usual rooms, across the hall from his in the wing of the palace where visiting dignitaries are hosted. Why would he think otherwise? 

She glances at Zuko, who is smirking at her, and follows Aang. 

“I’m glad you ended up being here to help with all this,” Aang says to her conversationally as they walk through the halls. “But why are you here?” 

Shit. “Sokka, uh, Sokka needed me to help him with some…things. You know, diplomacy things. And he said it was easier with someone, uh, here in the Fire Nation. So, you know…” She shrugs. “Here I am!” 

Aang arches an eyebrow at her. “If you say so.” He is obviously unconvinced. “Well, good night.” 

Katara shuts herself in her rooms and sighs. So much for staying the night with her _whatever he is,_ but she couldn’t very well jump into Zuko’s arms in front of Aang. “What a fucking day,” she mutters. Even though she’d been asleep for half of it, she is exhausted—between Zuko’s mutinous council and making sure Aang’s food got to the hungriest mouths, she hasn’t slowed down since they left her bedroom. Judging from the setting sun, that was some time ago.

She changes into a shift for sleeping and washes her face in the basin. In the mirror, she looks as tired as she feels, and she wonders how Zuko is holding up. He’s been doing this for days instead of hours, and if the meeting she observed earlier is any indication, he hasn’t had much help. 

She thinks about how she hadn’t invited him to stay the night the first time, how she’d left without speaking to him. He’d brought that up as evidence she wanted a fling rather than _him,_ and while she considers it obvious that that was not the case, she supposes you _could_ construe her actions that way. 

Her reflection regards her with dissatisfaction. Damn, maybe _she’s_ the bad communicator. 

“Fine,” she tells the mirror. “I’m going.” 

She walks in her bare feet and her nightgown through the maze of the palace until she is standing in front of the royal suite. If the two guards posted at the door are surprised to see her, they don’t show it; they admit her without a word. 

She hesitates just inside the doors. Maybe he would’ve come to get her if he wanted her. Maybe she’s overstepping. But the doors bang shut, announcing her presence, and it’s too late to turn back. 

The mound of blankets on the bed shifts, and she realizes he’d been asleep. Shit. She hadn’t meant to wake him. 

Zuko props up on his elbow, running a hand through his mussed hair. He blinks, squints, then realizes it’s her, and a smile breaks over his face that makes her chest bleed warmth. 

“Hi,” she says, hanging back by the threshold. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know you were already sleeping.” 

“It’s ok.” His voice is muzzy, and now his hair sticks straight up. He shifts over in the bed (it _is_ bigger than hers). “Come here.” 

“Ok,” she whispers. She pads across the spacious room, perches on the edge of the bed, swings her legs onto the sheets. Somehow, this is more intimate than the sex, and he _had_ invited her (twice), but she feels like Shy Awkward Katara, uncertain and exposed. 

“Kat,” he scolds, and her stomach flutters. “Come _here_.” He reaches over for her, and she scoots closer until he can yank her the rest of the way. He winds his arms around her, slides a knee between hers, buries his face in her hair. “That's better,” he sighs. She feels electrified where his skin touches hers (which is _everywhere_ ), but he is breathing even and deep in no time. She closes her eyes and tucks her face against his throat, willing herself to get a grip. 

If she thought sleeping wrapped up in blankets that smelled like him was nice, it is nothing compared to being cocooned in the man himself, and she relaxes sooner than she’d feared. She drifts off, lulled by the sound of his breath and the slow steady drum of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this shorter chapter I wrote to move the plot along; sorry for no smut in this one. I promise the finale is coming soon (and there will be smut).
> 
> One of my absolute very favorite Zutara stories is [Walk of Shame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170482), and some of the wording in this chapter is inspired by that work. I encourage everyone to read it, and I owe homage to the author, although it's orphaned so I can't send them the fan mail they deserve.


	4. The Ring

Katara wakes tangled in the red sea of Zuko’s sheets and bathed in sunlight. Zuko isn’t in bed with her, but she sits up to find he isn’t far, sitting at his low desk writing and shuffling through papers. He glances up at her and rumbles, “Good morning.” 

“Hi,” she whispers, taking in the generous swath of skin his loosely tied robe leaves bare. She remembers him promising to _teach her_ the day before, but of course things hadn’t gone as planned, and she remembers Aang. “Did Aang already leave?” 

Zuko’s smile twists into a smirk. “Yes. He said to tell you goodbye, and that he went looking for you in your rooms before he left, but you weren’t there.” 

She groans. “Well, between Sokka and Aang, I think the cat-deer’s out of the bag.” Whatever the cat-deer was—that they are…together? Exclusive? Trying this out? Fucking? She hopes not the last one, because they’d had that whole excruciating conversation about how she didn’t want to just hop into bed and then leave…

Zuko laughs. “I think his exact words were, ‘I can’t wait to tell Toph she was right.’” 

“It’s really not fair,” she mutters, “that Toph can hear heartbeats.” 

Silence stretches between them, but it isn’t bad. He turns back to his papers, and she gets out of bed to sit next to him and watch his steady brushstrokes, the elegant movements of his hands. He pauses to read one document and absentmindedly strokes his free hand down her spine. The gesture is easy and gentle, and affection for this man floods her. His eyes are glued to the scroll, every bit Fire Lord, thorough as always, but his touch is sweet, every bit the Zuko who had made love to her for the first time, careful and reassuring. 

She thinks again that the Many Zukos are all real, all just parts of him, and she realizes she loves every inch of every part. Even the infuriating, insufferable, arrogant parts and the heartrending broken parts and the awkward stumbling parts—all of them. All of him. 

It’s really the least she can do. He has been putting up with her infuriating parts for years, has seen her at her most broken, has taken her hand and led her through the awkward parts of fitting their bodies together and trying to put words to what she wants. 

She has never, she realized, asked him what _he_ wants. 

“Zuko,” she begins. 

“Hmm?”

“You asked me what it is I do want.” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“What about you?” 

He puts down the scroll and turns to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“What is it that _you_ want?” 

His amber eyes are steady and intense on hers. He reaches up to touch her cheek. “You.” 

Fire sings through her body. “So, that’s really hot,” she says hoarsely, and he laughs low and warm, “but not very specific.” 

He pulls her into his lap and kisses her, and she’ll never get used to it, the thrill of him fused to her, mouth and hands and body and (she dares to hope) heart and soul. He pulls her head back by her hair and murmurs into her throat, “All of you, all the time.” His teeth on her skin leave sparks in their wake. “Is that specific enough for you?” 

She runs her hands down the planes of his chest, unwinds the ties of his robe with shaking fingers. She can’t find her voice enough to answer, but he doesn’t seem to mind, busy instead with the difficult task of sliding her dress over her head without letting her take her hands off him. 

He lets out a ragged breath, and she does remember now, now that he has divested her of her nightgown to find her without underwrappings, making that particular fashion choice when she had still been hoping that last night would go somewhat differently. “You promised to teach me some more things,” she says innocently. 

His expression goes feral. “All of _this_ —” he trails his hands from her face to her breasts to between her legs—“is all _mine_.” He shoves his fingers into her, and she whimpers and clutches at his shoulders. “How’s that for a lesson?” He works his fingers in and out while she rocks her hips greedily against the heel of his hand. 

Twining her fingers in his hair, she puts her mouth on every inch of him she can reach. He turns his head to catch her lips, and the kiss is messy and desperate and she _aches_ for him in ways she can’t name. She sighs his name instead, soft and sweet, and he shudders. 

“I want you to stay here,” he breathes. “To challenge me, to help me.” He crooks his fingers just right, and she gasps unevenly against his neck. “To make those pretty little sounds for me.” 

She whines when he pulls his hand away, but he just smirks and urges her backward until she is on the floor looking up at him while he sheds his robe and his pants and rakes dark eyes over her. He wraps a hand around himself and teases her folds with the head of his cock, wringing a desperate “Please please _please_ ” from her. 

He presses into her, and she arches up to meet him, and _Spirits_ she will do anything not to have to part with this, this feeling of fullness and closeness and heat. She draws him down with needy hands on his face and kisses him, sucks his tongue into her mouth, and he keeps up the steady rhythm of his thrusts, stoking the flame at the base of her spine ever-higher. 

“So?” he whispers against her teeth. 

“So, what?” she pants, scrambling to remember the question. He starts to rub her clit, which doesn’t help her concentration, and she shuts her eyes against the onslaught. 

“Will you stay with me?” His tone is uncertain even as his hips and hands are sure, and her heart breaks and mends for him all at once. 

“Yes,” she gasps, and his fingers coax her climax from her, “yes yes _yes_.” 

She realizes belatedly that he had followed after her, that now they are both a tangle of sweaty panting bodies. He eases out and off, doesn’t bother to clean them up this time, tugs her into bed with him. 

“Maybe the floor,” he says wrly, gathering her against him, “wasn’t the best place for your third time.” 

She suspects she’ll have some bruises later, but it’s a small price to pay. “Maybe we can try it again later,” she suggests, “for the fourth or fifth or sixth time.” 

“When did you turn into a vixen?” he laughs. 

“I think it was when I came in here with no underwear on.” 

“Oh, yeah. That was definitely it.” 

***

She goes with him nearly everywhere after that. She’s sure she challenges him plenty, and she hopes she’s helping. His office, just off the throne room, becomes hers too, and they spend long days at their desks working in tandem. She feels useful, finally, coordinating the distribution of the food that comes a week later from the Earth Kingdom and directing the reconstruction of the razed villages. She wants to use this opportunity to build better schools and more sophisticated crop irrigation systems—not to mention a more robust public health infrastructure—and she fights tooth and nail for the funds to do it. This involves more than a few heated arguments during Council meetings, and if Zuko’s ministers have a healthy fear of him, they seem terrified of her. She shouts them down at least as often as she does Zuko, and she manages to leverage their intimidation to get her way even over Zuko’s half-hearted objections. 

He makes her pay by taking her hard over his desk. She doesn’t mind; if she has to trade a thorough fucking at Zuko’s hands for a better Fire Nation, that’s an exchange she’s more than willing to make. 

The months slip by as she learns more and more about how to run a country and more and more about how to make Zuko stutter and curse. Soon it will be time for them all to convene again, and Zuko’s temper starts to grow shorter than usual. 

The evening before Aang, Sokka, Suki, and Toph are set to arrive, he is honest-to-Agni yelling at her over whether to eat dinner in the courtyard or the dining room, and she loses it. 

“What is your problem?” 

“I just told you, I don’t want to eat in the—” 

“I meant your real problem!” He opens his mouth to reply, and she hisses, “I know it’s not about dinner so _don’t even try it_.” His mouth snaps back shut. “Remember _communicating_?” 

He folds his arms, averts his eyes, mutters, “You don’t have to be so snippy about it.” 

Katara smothers the urge to strangle him. “You are clearly upset about something, probably something to do with our friends coming tomorrow. Will you please just tell me what it is?” 

“I know Sokka and Toph and Aang have some idea what we’re…doing.” He rubs the back of his neck. “But we…I…they haven’t seen us since…and Sokka’s going to freak out.” 

Whatever she had expected, that wasn’t it. “Why would Sokka freak out?” 

“I’m not anyone’s favorite person,” he mumbles, eyes on the ground. “I’m sure Sokka would rather his sister end up with someone else.” 

All her righteous indignation evaporates. He is so often full of bravado, but she knows better, knows that the fear of unworthiness is his constant companion.

She closes the space between them to wind her arms around him. “You’re my favorite person,” she tells him. “Sokka likes you—they all do. He sent me up here to see you!” She presses a kiss behind his ear. “Besides,” she adds, “I’d like to see Sokka try to tell me what to do.” 

This wins her a little laugh from Zuko. “What if Sokka wants you to go back to the South Pole?” he whispers into her hair. 

“I’m sure Sokka is enjoying running the country without my input,” she deadpans. 

“But you’re royalty. Isn’t it your duty to your people to be there?” He tightens his grip on her. 

“I’m not really royalty, especially since Sokka’s Chief now.” She strokes her fingers down his back, feeling the tension coiled there. “And I think I’m fulfilling my duty to my people just fine by helping maintain international peace.” He doesn’t relax. “I’m not going anywhere, Zuko. I promise. Not unless you throw me out; maybe not even then.” 

“I would never throw you out,” he says, horrified. “I’m trying to find a way to keep you here.” 

“I know, I know.” She is unaccountably moved that he is so worried. “Has anyone ever told you you’re the sweetest man on Earth?”

He snorts. “No, not ever.” 

“Good. That way I can keep you all to myself.” 

***

In bed after the lights are out, he whispers, “Can you tell me about something?” 

She wriggles around in the circle of his arms to face him. “Sure.” 

Even in the dark, she can tell he is frowning. “What are…” He clears his throat. “Are there…customs in the South for…marriage?”

The question floors her. “Well,” she stammers, “in the North, some marriages are arranged, and the man carves a betrothal necklace for the woman.”

“I know.” His voice is faint. “But in the South?” 

“It’s a lot less formal. Truthfully, all the men were away fighting in the war for as long as I can remember. Now that many of them are back, some betrothals and marriages are taking place, but I think a lot of the old traditions got lost in between.” Do not, she tells herself, ask why he wants to know. Do not. Instead, she asks, “What are the Fire Nation customs?”

“Some marriages are arranged here, too. Traditionally an engagement is indicated with a golden ring, or sometimes other gold jewelry. For Firebenders…” He hesitates. “I guess it sounds silly to say it out loud. Firebenders sometimes fashion the jewelry from ore themselves. We say that when you use your own chi to make the ring, you fuse your essence to it, and it symbolizes your promise to enter into a union with your betrothed, to fuse yourself to her.”

“It’s not silly. It’s beautiful.” She lays her palm over his heart, imagines gold on her hand. It’s been six months, she scolds herself. Get it together. 

His heart is racing under her fingertips. “In traditional marriages, if they aren’t arranged…You petition a woman’s father or brother for her hand.” She can feel him holding his breath. “Do they…do you do that in the Water Tribe?” 

“Maybe in the North.” She tries to imagine Sokka granting someone permission to marry her and fights to keep the amusement out of her voice. “Not in the South.” 

He breathes out. “Oh.” A long pause, and, “Is marriage something you’ve…ever thought about?”

She grins in the dark. “I think I had Sokka marry me to a snowman about a million times when we were kids.” He barks out a laugh. “I know,” she giggles. “I don’t really remember any marriage ceremonies, but my mom used to tell me about hers all the time. She said her mother worked for months on the gown, that it was yards and yards of white fur covered in blue and silver beads. Mom would say it was the most beautiful she’d ever felt, and she would tell me she’d never forget the look on my dad’s face when he saw her.” 

“And that’s something you want?” His tone is something she can’t parse. “The ceremony, the gown?” 

She finds herself blinking back tears. “When I was little, I wanted that. But now my mom isn’t around to make the gown.” He gropes around for her face and thumbs away the tears gathering on her lashes. 

“I’m so sorry,” he breathes. 

Sniffling, she covers his fingers with hers. “She would always end with the part about my dad’s expression. I would tell her it was gross, and she would laugh and tell me I’d understand when I was older. She was right—the important part of the story wasn’t the ceremony or the dress. It was that my dad loved her, and she loved him.” 

Zuko is quiet for a long time, his hand stilled on her face, her fingers laced loosely over his. “I don’t think,” he says finally, miserably, “that my parents loved each other.” 

“Oh, Zuko.” She wraps her whole body around him, arms and legs, trying to hold his broken heart together, trying to force love in through his skin. It is her turn to say, “I am so sorry.” 

There is nothing else to say. She holds on tight until she is sure he is asleep, and even then she relaxes only minutely, keeping ankles and hands clasped around him. She resolves not to let go, not ever. 

***

Aang and company arrive early the next morning, and they get right to work. No one says anything about her new seat at Zuko’s right hand—though Sokka waggles his eyebrows suggestively at her in the hallway, for which she punches him in the arm—and Aang seems a little relived at the generally reduced amount of yelling. 

“See?” she whispers to Zuko as they sit down to dinner. “Nobody’s freaking out.” She begins pouring tea for each of them and distributes the cups as they fill their plates. 

Toph pops a hunk of fish in her mouth and pipes up, “So, when’s the wedding?” 

Zuko chokes on a mouthful of tea, and Katara pats him absently on the shoulder. “Toph, what are you talking about?” Obviously Zuko remaining calm is a lost cause, but she steadies her voice, knowing Toph is just trying to get a rise out of them. 

“Well, Sparky’s had a ring in his pocket all day,” Toph says nonchalantly, twirling her chopsticks. “I can feel it jangling around. He’s just holding it for you for safekeeping, right, Katara?” She covers her mouth in faux surprise. “Or has he not given it to you yet?” 

Katara can suddenly feel her heartbeat in her ears. “It’s not mine,” she stammers. “I’m sure it’s his. Fire Nation royalty have a lot of finery. Right, Zuko?” 

Zuko’s entire face is as red as his scar. She elbows him. _“Right?”_

“Right,” he says, voice tight. “The Royal Family has lots of, um, jewelry.” 

Toph props her feet on the table. “And it’s Fire Nation custom to wear it in your pocket and not on your hand, is it?” 

“Toph,” Aang whispers, “that’s enough.” He is eyeing Zuko, who looks ready to faint. 

“Well,” Suki cuts in brightly, “in the Earth Kingdom, we have many jewelry makers, and the market is doing wonderfully. It’s always good to see people buying things they like, even if they don’t need them, because it means they have a little money to spare. Right, Sokka?” 

For his part, Sokka has been focused on the food, and he looks up at Suki with furrowed brows. “What?” he says with his mouth full. She glares at him, so he chirps, “Right!” 

“How are things in the South Pole, Sokka?” Katara asks quickly. Toph, apparently satisfied with the trouble she’s already caused, doesn’t try to redirect.

“Good!” He reloads his plate. “Lot of penguins born this year. Some of the little guys are going penguin sledding. Always warms my heart.” 

Katara smiles. “And Dad’s good?” 

Sokka nods. “He sends his love. He keeps asking me what it is you’re doing up here, and I always tell him it’s _who_ you’re—Ow!” 

Suki has stabbed him with her folded-up fan. “What was that for?” he whines. 

“Seriously?” Suki hisses at him. 

“What?” he hisses back. “It’s not a secret!” 

“That doesn’t mean we have to talk about it!” 

“Okay,” sighs Aang. “Everybody get enough to eat? Let’s call it a night.” Momo snags a bunch of grapes and obediently scampers up Aang’s arm as he gets to his feet. “Good night, everybody.” 

They murmur their goodnights, and Suki drags Sokka off, with Aang herding Toph after them. Mechanically, Zuko walks to his chambers, and Katara decides not to pretend she doesn’t sleep there and follows him. 

Inside the safety of their room, Zuko doesn’t relax an inch, and his face is still crimson. 

“Sorry about all that,” Katara says sheepishly. She’s not sure why she’s apologizing, but she doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t dare ask what she really wants to know. 

Zuko whisks off his formal robes and hangs them up. She sees him fish something from the pocket and turn it over in his hands. “It is yours,” he whispers. “If you want it.”

He shows her his cupped palms, and he is holding a delicate ring, two golden strands twisted together. 

Katara cradles his hands in hers and peers at the ring. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes. “It belongs to the Royal Family?” 

He shakes his head. “I made it. It belongs to you.” 

“Is it..?” 

His voice is almost too soft to hear. “It’s an engagement ring.” 

She looks into his face, and he is so heartbreakingly scared that she leans up to kiss him gently while she takes the ring out of his hands. It fits her perfectly, and she admires it in the firelight. “How long have you had this?” 

“I made it a few weeks ago. I didn’t know if…you would want me to talk to Sokka, and I wanted it to be ready just in case.” 

“And you’ve been carrying it around ever since?” She gives him a teasing smile, and he shuffles his feet. 

“Kind of.” 

“And what was your plan if Toph hadn’t given you up?” 

“I don’t know,” he says miserably, and his tone catches her off guard. 

“Zuko, what’s wrong?” She reaches up to cup his face. “If you aren’t ready, I can give it back, I should have—”

“No, no,” he says hurriedly. “I want you to keep it, if you…want it. If you’re saying yes.” 

“Of course I want it. Of course I’m saying yes.” 

He smiles sadly. “I told you that my…my parents weren’t…close. And your parents, it sounds like they were happy together. I don’t know…how to be happy with someone. That’s why I was waiting to ask you. I don’t know how to be a good husband. I don’t know what it looks like.” 

“It looks like this,” she tells him. “You’re already good to me.” 

He puts his hands on her waist. “Are you sure? I know it’s…a lot. And soon. And I’m maybe way out of line.” 

She pulls him close. “I’m sure. I love you, and I love being here with you. And don’t tell my dad, but I think our essences are already pretty, uh, fused.” 

He laughs and kisses her, and the flame of him fills her up with light. She thinks this Zuko is her favorite of them all—hers.

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind, there's like x number of Zutara fics you can write if you're staying relatively close to the storyline of the show, and they're a mix-and-match of settings and themes. So you can set it around The Southern Raiders, or you can set it post-canon. For a number of reasons, I hate writing within the canon--I don't want to have to rewrite the rest of the plot (I like the plot the way it is, except for obviously this pairing), and I want the characters to be older. It's easier to write post-canon because the timeline can be whatever you want it to be. (It's also so easy to set a story within the palace, with Katara as an envoy of some kind--honest to God, I don't know anymore if that really happens or is just a popular fanfic frame. I haven't seen LOK, and I'm rewatching ATLA currently for the first time since I was 8.)
> 
> For themes, you can do   
> -friends to enemies to lovers   
> -enemies to lovers   
> -so much sexual tension (spar-turned-sex is a natural plot here)  
> -hurt/comfort, feat. Zuko hurting Katara  
> -hurt/comfort, feat. Katara hurting Zuko  
> -hurt/comfort, feat. they are both traumatized y'all   
> -Blue Spirit (side note--I read so many Blue Spirit saves Katara in Ba Sing Se fics that I thought I had just forgotten that scene from when I watched it as a child, but now I'm in Book 3 and that shit does not happen)   
> -Blue Spirit/Painted Lady  
> -opposites/Sun and Moon/Fire and Water 
> 
> I'm sure I'm forgetting some here (hence the x number instead of an actual number--never tempt fate by numbering a list before you start listing things) but I bring this up because I feel like I am always either picking one of these or trying to smash them all together. I'm also concerned that since x = a finite number, all the good fics have been written already. 
> 
> Obviously this list does not include significant divergences from canon, true AU stories, or works set in the universe of ATLA that don't really follow the show at all. Some of my very favorite stories fall into those categories, but I am not good enough at worldbuilding to write them myself, so they aren't in my theory of the case here as it relates to my own writing. 
> 
> If you're still reading by now, let me know what you think of this theory of Zutara and where my work fits into it. Feedback always welcome. I've been writing fanfiction since ATLA came out, but I've never published it until now.
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone!


End file.
